Patricia Mou

First principles are the Lego building blocks for thinking. These Lego blocks, once carefully assembled with forethought, are reusable. With the right set of first-principles, you can start mixing them in ways you couldn't before allowing you to think better and faster. 

“As we’ve seen, all criticism, attack, insults, and judgments vanish when we focus attention on hearing the feelings and needs behind a message. The more we practice in this way, the more we realize a simple truth: behind all those messages we’ve allowed ourselves to be intimidated by are just individuals with unmet needs appealing to us to... See more

Do the work.  That's all the productivity advice you need, and the only useful productivity advice you're ever going to get.

Tribes are living organisms. Even if nobody joins or leaves, members of the group change and the world around the group changes. Your rules, norms and goals will evolve. 

Trust the gold: Humans are fundamentally good, creative, and whole. They have noble intentions. Harm is caused not by malice but rather by fear, desperation, and lack of skillfulness/choice in meeting one's needs— challenges that have been part of humankind for quite a long time. With the exception of extreme situations, I aspire to approach every... See more

There is a common misperception of what makes life meaningful. It is the idea that we have a special purpose in life – and that once we find it, all our confusion ends.

Note that seeking happiness as an end might be counterproductive. Many people report that constantly checking to see if they are happy actually decreases their happiness - a report that fits with the research on "flow." It may be better to seek some of the above goals as ends, and happiness will be a side-effect.

Rather than sticking to the script we assigned ourselves (or our structures and society assigned us), maybe we can imagine who we are, what matters to us, and what we need without focusing on “growing into” the next big thing. Maybe we can look at ourselves-as-is, rather than the ones we envisioned becoming. That’s the place everything else grows... See more